Emotional Appraisal Engines for Games
Affective game engines could support game development by providing specialized emotion sensing (detection), emotion modeling, emotion expression and affective behavior generation explicitly tailored towards games. In this chapter we discuss the rationale
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Emotional Appraisal Engines for Games Joost Broekens, Eva Hudlicka, and Rafael Bidarra
Abstract Affective game engines could support game development by providing specialized emotion sensing (detection), emotion modeling, emotion expression and affective behavior generation explicitly tailored towards games. In this chapter we discuss the rationale for specialized emotional appraisal engines for games, analogous to having specialized physics engines. Such engines provide basic emotion modeling capabilities to generate emotions for Non Player Characters (NPCs), just like the Havok engine provides physics-related special purpose processing. In particular, such engines provide NPCs with an emotional state by simulating the emotional meaning of an event to an NPC in the context of the game’s storyline, the NPC’s personality, and relationships with other NPCs. We discuss why such engines are needed, present an example approach based on cognitive appraisal, and show how this appraisal engine has been integrated in a wide variety of architectures for controlling NPCs. We conclude with a discussion of novel gameplays possible by the more sophisticated emotion modeling enabled by an emotion appraisal engine.
Introduction Emotions are arguably the most important element of gaming and game design [1–6]. Players experience a wide range of emotions during the entire gameplay process. This begins even before playing the game in the form of anticipation (hope) raised by advertisement or previous experiences and disappointment or confirmation of the hope raised by developer blogs about the expected game features. Then the process of ordering (unpacking) and installing involves a wide variety of affective experiences including frustration, eagerness, anger, relief, and concentration. The first actual contact with the game can involve feelings of awe and belonging (e.g. in
J. Broekens () • R. Bidarra Intelligent Systems Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] E. Hudlicka College of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts-Amherst & Psychometrix Associates, Amherst, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 K. Karpouzis, G.N. Yannakakis (eds.), Emotion in Games, Socio-Affective Computing 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41316-7_13
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the case of a well-designed sequel). Thus by the time we are actually playing the game, we have gone through an important process of emotional investment in the game. This creates a bond between the game and the player, sometimes so strong that this bond can have serious negative consequences for the player and his/her surroundings. On the other hand that same bond creates a willingness to invest time and effort in playing the game and generates unique positive experiences not possible with any other media. All four of the core areas of affective computing can contribute to a more immersive and engaging gameplay experience: emotion sensing and re
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